Salt

It was a long walk-about, even with the cafe stops and cold drinks at the Oasis Hotel across the river. And it was steaming hot. I whiled away the time just before lunch over icy 7-ups and lime with the Kiwi owner of the Oasis. Being an inordinately cheerful man, he belied my experience of ex-pats being generally the most miserable of bastards. Of course he was a Kiwi.

I braced up and looped back over the river to the market, through the fiercest hear of the day. Silly foreigner. I made the dim market and selected a stall for my luncheon.

What to eat on a hot-ish tropical day? Why, salt fish. To eat salt fish requires condiments. Take a dish and blend fish sauce, the saltiest of condiments, with chiles from hell and great squeezings of lime. Flake the salt fish off of the bones and pile it on the rice. Them dump the fish- sauce-chilie-lime mixture over the top. Voila!

A feast like no other and all that salt sweated out has been restored to proper balance.